In the seventeenth year of Hongwu in the Ming Dynasty, Guo Huan, who had been a servant of the household department for many years, finally became a daughter-in-law and was promoted to Hubu Shangshu, becoming the highest official in charge of the country's population and land resources.
After taking office, Guo Huan naturally wanted to investigate the grass-roots work and understand the work carried out in various regions. Guo Shangshu's first stop, he chose to go to Zhejiang West Province.
When his superiors came to inspect, Huang Wentong, the governor of Zhejiang West Province, did not dare to be sloppy, and received Guo Huan with 100% enthusiasm, first reporting to the official office, and then inviting Guo Shangshu to his private residence on the grounds of admiring ancient paintings.
In this private mansion, Huang Wentong got several beautiful women to hold up ancient paintings for Guo Shangshu to admire, and seeing that Guo Shangshu liked it very much, he gave him the ancient paintings and beauties as a greeting gift.
With the sacrifice of beautiful women and antiques, Guo Shangshu was completely reduced to a corrupt person. In order to praise Huang Wentong's "understanding", Guo Shangshu made a big stroke of the pen and transferred 500,000 yuan of office funds from the state capitals of Zhejiang Province to Huang's name.
Huang Wentong did not dare to swallow it, so he gave half of his money to honor Guo Shangshu.
Since then, Guo Shangshu has remotely commanded Huang Wentong in the DPRK to set up a name, privately change bills, and embezzle taxes from Zhejiang Province.
As greed grew, Guo Shangshu was no longer satisfied with the wealth contributed by this small place in Western Zhejiang. So through relations between the DPRK and China, he extended his hand to the country's military granary.
In just 3 months, Guo Huan sold 24 million stone army grain thieves and got millions of taels of silver. The 24 million stones of military grain was the sum of the autumn grain collected in the country at that time, and it was the ration for the army in the border areas to spend the winter.
In addition, Guo Huan also colluded with 12 envoys across the country to obtain 6 million silver banknotes worth 6 million yuan through illegal means such as cleverly setting up names and altering bills.
Most of this money was embezzled by these corrupt elements, who built private houses and mansions, raised dancing girls and singers, and made noise all day long, which was corrupt.
In March of the eighteenth year of Hongwu, Yushi Yumin and Ding Tingju impeached Peiping Chengcheng for announcing the acts of political envoys Li Yu and Zhao Quande, the envoy of the criminal investigation, for stealing military grain and embezzling corruption.
The case soon became deeper and deeper, and more and more people were involved. In the end, Guo Huan, who was hiding behind the scenes, was pulled out, and tens of thousands of officials involved in the case and people at all levels were implicated across the country.
Zhu Yuanzhang was so angry that he almost turned his back on him, and he couldn't help but sigh: Since ancient times, those who have violated the law and discipline have never seen such arrogance. Therefore, he ordered that all the heads of high-ranking officials such as Hubu Shangshu Guo Huan, Official Shangshu Yuqi, Rebbe Shangshu Zhao Mao, Punishment Department Shangshu Wang Huidi, Bingbu Shilang Wang Zhi, and Gongbu Shilang Mai Zhide be cut off.
In this case, 4 of the six Shangshu were cut down, 12 of the 13 envoys of the country were cut down, and countless family members and subordinates were killed, and tens of thousands of people were killed. The Ming Shi Penal Chronicle records that "tens of thousands of people died (in this case)".
The Guo Huan case was one of the biggest corruption cases in the Ming Dynasty, and most officials at all levels throughout the country were involved. The Ming Dynasty was the most anti-corruption dynasty in history, and it was also the most corrupt dynasty, and the Guo Huan case reflects this fact.
The case also gave birth to a cure for greed, namely the birth of capitalized numbers. In order to avoid private changes in accounts such as Guo Huan and others, Zhu Yuanzhang changed the capitalization of the first, second, third, and fourth to one, two, three, wanton, wu, etc., and this method of accounting is still used today.
This may be something that Zhu Yuanzhang could not have dreamed of? If he were still alive, the invention would have been patentable.